An Apology to the Character Previously Known as Chuck’s Mistress

I OWE THIS WOMAN ONE HELL OF AN APOLOGY. I don’t want to make excuses I was catty and I was rude. I took the “story” told to me by the Handyman as truth. I mean there is no reason to lie to me - at least in my fairly normal mind but alas not all men are wired that way. 

When I first met The Handyman a part of his story was an openness about how heartbroken he was at the loss of his marriage. How much he loved his family and life with her, but that she was unfaithful to him. He painted a picture of two wild players that both were seeing other people and finally fell in love and stopped and created a life together. In his version of the story, he stopped seeing other people and she continued to want an open marriage. 

I am going to pause here and acknowledge that I firmly believe there are two sides to every story and although to him, I was the Vice President of the HeMan Woman Hater’s Club he was forming. I wasn’t really judging her. I know people a little, and at the time I was falling into this trap, I was overly confident in my ability to read people and trust my intuition... More on that later. 

But when Chuck’s Mistress reached out to me at the beginning of March, after realizing The Handyman and I had broken up in February. I was really forthright and honest with her. I told her I was someone’s evil ex wife too and I take all the one sided versions of breakup stories with a grain of salt. So no need to explain herself. I also said, I appreciated her offer to talk or meet if I ever needed anything but that I was not going to be taking her up on that because I knew that would be the end of any chance with him, and I wasn’t ready to burn that bridge with something that would feel like such a betrayal. 

Let’s take a moment to rename her My Gemini Twin... It so happens we are two days apart. Same year. I knew we were close in age and birthdate because The Handyman almost didn’t go out with me when he heard my birthday. Whether you believe in that kind of pseudoscience or not, this girl and I have a lot in common, as I will come to find out. 

This conversation leads to The Handyman and I communicating again after our February break up. At the same time, My Gemini Twin is filing a harassment and stalking charge against The Handyman. She has 90 pages of texts and calls and emails from December. She has two Protective Orders against him. HE “misses me” misses his “best friend” and would like to see me. He needs someone to tell him he isn't the monster she is painting him to be with all these charges and accusations.

We spiral into this house playing happy family as Covid hits in March and quarantines begin. He tells me he isn’t wanting to be exclusive because he is “soooo broken by her” and he wants to justify his promiscuity as self care. Not being obligated to anyone. 

He also uses sex for work. He begins sleeping with a Client with a prominent last name - we will just call her Z here. He also has rekindled his relationship with The Cougar he cheated on me with when we were all in love and traveling and having a wonderful time in a committed (at least for me) relationship. So the cougar, Z, an EMSA paramedic who’s reputation is so stellar a man with a vasectomy uses a condom, and some chick he went to High School with are all making appearances in his bed. Z he is sleeping with solely for a commercial job and he literally cries about how bad he feels about this in moments of contrived vulnerability. Same with The Cougar - she moves to scoring him some remodel jobs and is back in his rotation. 

Then there is me... I AM AWARE of all of this and I am STILL around. I am seeing other people. I am emotionally detaching. I am living for the moments of goodness and normalcy. I am the one making dinner every night, helping with work, I am literally designing the projects and giving input and creating scopes for everything he is doing at the Z project. I AM A DESPERATE IDIOT. 

To be fair, to MYSELF. I will come to realize that I am dealing with not just a narcissist but one of the most impressive manipulators the police have ever come in contact with, that I am dealing with an actual psychopath by Psychology standards. I have no idea how far this man is willing to go. 

This new found, role of how important I am to him, I am not like the other girls. I am the one he doesn’t have to wear “the mask” as he refers to it. I am the one who sees the “real him.” I am the most important woman in his life and he is hopeful he will someday be ready to try and have a real relationship with me. This pathetic scenario plays right into the cycle of Affection and Affirmation followed by Alienation. 

The Handyman is a pro. He has me trying to figure out what I need to do to get him back. He has me sacrificing my own emotional wellbeing and making changes to myself to somehow win back the man who was so in love with me in the beginning. I have lost 30lbs at this point so the man who, and I quote “loves my heart, my mind and everything about my soul, will someday also love my body.” I am super woman and paying for things for him. Groceries, games, educational projects for his kids. Dinners are made, the boys are watched and their school work is monitored. I am the best babysitter and personal assistant on the planet for this man. 

I am hanging on to the part of him that is good and decent; the part I have convinced myself is real and this promiscuous broken man, that is the part that will heal and go away. WHY AM I SO STUPID? 

This man warns me. He tells me: 

“I am not good for you.” 

“I will hurt you.” 

“This is not healthy.” 

“You should have left the first time I cheated.”

“You need to create better boundaries for yourself”

“You are more fucked up than me, because you are still here.”

“Wonder what is wrong with you, that you stay?”

AND SO ON... These are just a few gems but not to be outdone by... “EMOTIONAL ABUSE LOOKS REALLY GOOD ON YOU.” In a conversation about me not being able to eat when I am so stressed. He acknowledged my weight loss and improved attractiveness in his eyes as a result of his emotional abuse. 

RUN.

Nope... I stay... I stay and I stay... Two instance happen before I finally leave for good. 

Beginning of April: in a moment of strength to see this chapter finally close. I meet him to collect my belongings. I log on to my computer he is borrowing and he has added his Apple ID to it so, I can see his texts. Facing the multitude of women all getting the same “good morning beautiful” texts, selfies, and photos of his day, and work - the same pictures I get checking in with me. Makes me sick. The gathering of all of my personal belongings. Clothes, shoes, toiletries, expensive wines from trips together. Things of value he has been using. In between that moments of apology and his fits of rage... this takes some time. I will go more into detail of this incident another time but for now lets just say he broke some valuables, threatened me physically, and I left his house with the majority of my things minus what I could not fit in my car and a shattered cell phone so I couldn’t call the police. 

Mid May - I come home from a cookout with him, covered in bruises. The sexual variety. The kind of bruising that has happened on my body one other time. The time I was raped at 17 at the lake. Very similar bruising to that traumatic experience 20 years ago... almost to the week. 

When these two instances happen, I reach out to my Gemini Twin. In April, I don’t tell her much. I just want to understand her story. I even said to her selfishly, I need to hear your side of things because I need to better understand what I am going through. They are still going through the divorce and at this point, I am not willing to divulge much that will confirm I am indeed in communication with her, because I am still not ready to lose him. I am attached... I have been love bombed and then I have been left trying to figure out how to fix myself to make him happy. 

The second instance, the bruising, the grey in how that came about and the pieces i remember that feel like a dream because how could he do that to me? That time. I asked her to meet me. I told her everything... I told her not to rat me out that I had been in communication with her until I was able to get a few things but at this point we have been communicating since March and when I finally remove the veil of “he is different with me” and tell her the WHOLE TRUTH. I find the pattern. 

I meet the woman before My Gemini Twin as well... The pattern of behavior is further revealed. I see this man. THIS MONSTER. She tells me a much more believable and logical tale that starts to match up with the educated guesses I was able to make regarding the failure of his first marriage. She tells me things her therapist has told her and gives me things to look for in my own behavior so I can process the ABUSE I have been enduring since December. 

I spend the end of June and most of July trying to get my things returned to me. Not wanting anything to do with him again ever. I just want my stuff. I want this chapter closed. He refuses. 

So I decide I am going to fire a warning shot... I make a post on Facebook about abusive relationships and how there is a legal way to have your personal property returned. I blast that I am going to file a Replevin to get a judge to sign off on a Writ. This will allow me to pay a Sheriff $50 to escort me to get my personal items. He undoubtedly sees this... from one of the many mutual friends.

He once made a post with photos and accusations on Facebook about my Gemini Twin and was swiftly served with ANOTHER Protective Order. In his mind you can "get a protective order against a ham sandwich." So, he decides to try and get a PO against ME... He makes some really low blows in his documentation, attacking me physically, writing that I weigh 20lbs more than I do and referencing stains on my teeth that are birth defect from my mother taking tetracycline while she was pregnant. So he writes that my distinguishing features are stains on my teeth and a wide face. 

His Protective Order is denied... As soon as I am aware of this. I file one of my own. Knowing his violent tendencies and understanding his pattern of assault and stalking. Mine is granted. I also file two Police Reports. One for the domestic assault, vandalization of personal property, and the other for sexual assault. Both of these are pending going to to the DA. Both of these I am heavily pursuing and both should have been done immediately following the incidents. 

I am out of the Fog at this point. I am realizing the manipulation he used. I am seeing the pattern. I am not the first, I am not the second, I am not even the third... So I KNOW this is not me. I know he is the monster. I know he used Church and prayer to make himself seem safe. I know he smothered me with affection and attention in the beginning all while sleeping around and lying to me. I realize his back and forth game. Maintaining ties to me to manage my perception of him. I see him as the full blown narcissist that he is and I am PISSED. 

I am so angry with myself. I am so angry for the position I put myself in, that I allowed him to hurt me, physically and emotionally. I am also terrified. I sit down with a Police Officer and as soon as I mention his name, he knows exactly who I am talking about. He tells me I am not afraid enough. That I need to know he is the most manipulative person he has seen and the countless times he has driven by my Gemini Twins house in an effort to intimidate her. He tells me how he would go and sit there at 3am. All I can think about is the firearm not registered to him and how when he snaps - he will kill us. 

I know he has massive anger issues. I have stood eye to eye with him, with a fist in my face. I know the stories of him attacking his children. Of punching my Gemini Twin. I have seen him reach out to strangers in an effort to get dirt on her, smear he reputation. I completely know the kind of emotional terrorist I am dealing with and I am not backing down. 

For once, I am standing front and center. I am standing up for the chorus of women saying this is not ok. We will not be treated like this. I am documenting his behavior so when the next girl googles this nice sweet charming retired firefighter that they meet online or at church or in home depot. They will see not one, but two women standing up to him. It is a lot harder to explain why you have 4 POs against you from multiple women than it was to justify it as lies and a strategy used in divorce. I am not divorcing him... I am taking my belongings and I am protecting myself. In the process I am hopefully protecting someone else. 

My Gemini Twin has been instrumental in my healing process. She has helped me step out of the cloud and see clearly where I was taken advantage of... She is a force and a survivor. She makes me feel seen, heard, understood and without her, I am not sure I would ever have the strength to move forward with holding this monster accountable for his actions. 

My PO has been extended through November. The Police are actively investigating the two reports I have filed against him. The DA will determine charges and a judge told him, he had to return my personal property to my father. All in all... I feel like no matter what the outcome of charges and punishment - I am still a winner. 

This man might think about his actions the next time... or he might not but at least the next woman will have a chance at seeing what they are getting into before it is too late.